


she must, then, try

by randomfatechidna



Category: Marvel 616, Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: F/M, House of M - Freeform, but only tangetially. its like if the fic is lacroix and the flavour is house of m
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-17
Updated: 2018-07-17
Packaged: 2019-06-11 20:20:29
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,697
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15323514
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/randomfatechidna/pseuds/randomfatechidna
Summary: She guesses that if he says he still wants her, everything must be a dream, not real, a product of too much red in her fingers, because it’s too good to be true, and she must, then, try to put the world back together.





	she must, then, try

**Author's Note:**

> this was heavily inspired by the disassembled/house of m event comic where wanda loses control of her powers and struggles to recognise what is real and what isn't - and also, doesn't really want to know whats real and whats not. its a bit of a lead up to what i think house of m could look like in the mcu, but to read it you dont need to have any knowledge of it, because its nothing like it at all. i wrote this soon after aou came out, and have just had it sitting around since then.

She said to him once, she said, “I looked into your head and saw annihilation.” 

It wasn’t a lie, and it’s not untrue even as she looks up at him now, her toes tucked under his thighs and leaning herself sideways against the head of her bed. He continues to break her, shatter her: to find new ways to push her out of herself – she does not recognise herself when she looks in the mirror; she does not recognise herself as she looks inside herself. Her own twin would not know her, now, she thinks, and at that thought something scratches inside her ribs and makes her uncomfortable where she was, just a few seconds ago, completely at ease.

The Vision adjusts himself so he faces her, Wanda withdrawing her feet so he can shift closer to her. “I’m sorry,” he says, and she is painfully aware of how synthetic he is, how every part of him has been wired and connected and she wonders if her magic works on him, if this whole encounter is a glitch in her control, if she let the red slip out without knowing, and she’s created everything, cooked up the Vision’s affection for her, as a selfish way to numb her grief, to make her forget.

His hands are cold in hers – a stark contrast to her brother, who was always warm, always buzzing with energy where the Vision is cold and collected and calm. His hands are cold in hers, and he pulls them into his lap. “Wanda,” he says, and she notes how his face pulls, confused. “I’m sorry if I have offended you, or…” he trails off, unsure. He is synthetic, yes, but Wanda can feel him thinking, feel how his thoughts are unique to him only, feels the gold shining naïveté of his mind and sees how it casts itself brilliant in colour. He is so young. They are both young, she concedes, but what she’s seen, who she is, counts for double for how it ages her.

“No,” she says, and he really hasn’t, but there is something wrong inside her when she hears it. “I just need a moment.” 

You love me, she thinks. There is a stab of loneliness that hits her then, makes her wonder why she is avoiding this. She lets red flood her fingernails, just for a moment to feel what she hasn’t, consciously, let herself tap into for months. Just to see if she can control it.

The Vision is watching her, trying to meet her eyes as she ducks her head. He is too good to her, too kind, and she knows she does not deserve him, even as she forgives herself for the things she has done in the past, as she reminds herself that she is a product of HYDRA, she is a product of a broken system, of poverty, of being outcasted. Even as she knows all of this, the Vision is too pure, he is still naïve, still young, and she still feels so old.

“How do you know this is real?” she says, and she asks like she is asking how to tell the time, tilts her head like a child. She asks because if she was manipulating him with her power, if she was making him love her, making him say it now, pulling his heart of metal towards hers of stone: if she didn’t know that she is, how would he?

He cocks his head to the side, and she can tell from the colour of his mind that he is trying to match her thoughts, trying to find the link between what they were talking about before and what they are talking about now. “That I love you, or life in general?” 

“Life in general,” she says, lying. She focuses on what is out her window – there’s a tree that’s finally flowered; it is beautiful and yellow and the bark looks like, if she touched it, it would feel like an exoskeleton, hiding something underneath. She thinks of adding more to what she said, thinks of amending it, and saying what she really meant. There are no words in her anymore, though, and she wonders if the words have ever been said before in the order she needs to say them in.

If he was older, if he was like Stark: dripping, oozing with sarcasm, deflecting, rerouting conversations, full of one liners, hiding concern, he would say that it is because he loves her, that’s how he knows that this is real, and it would be almost freeing to hear that from him, to hear that she is loved, again, but hearing it is not the same as knowing that she hasn’t constructed this entire scenario out of her grief. 

She thanks goodness, the universe, that he is not like Tony. “It doesn’t matter,” he says. “Isn’t that we are living enough?”

She thinks Pietro would argue that, as an android, synthezoid, AI, the Vision is not living. She knows he would, just because he is expressing interest in his sister and he would have to find something with which to antagonise him. Wanda genuinely doesn’t know if Pietro liked the Vision, there are a lot of things she doesn’t know now, she gets too distracted, too caught up in the web in her head, in the red, since he died, and her hands shake from where they are caught in the Vision’s. 

She leans her forehead on his shoulder, willing her hands not to tremble. He is trying to work her out, trying to place where her thoughts have gone. She would laugh: she doesn’t know either, where her thoughts have gone. Vision tries to keep her with him, and she is getting better, her thoughts are tending linear more than wild, more often than not, but she doesn’t know yet which she prefers. 

“What if I was manipulating you?” She pushes hard. She pulls her head away. She wants to see where he’ll go, how far, how bent. “What if,” she drags a finger down the side of his face, feels the vibranium, the divots and parts, and her heart strains in her chest, struggles to beat, because she doesn’t know; she is powerful, but she is breakable, and her magic is volatile at best. “What if I couldn’t control myself, what if I didn’t even know?”

The Vision takes a breath – measured, calm – but he doesn’t need to. The tree out the window sways gently in the wind, yellow flowers falling to the ground, out of sight, and making a noise like shuffling paper. Her hand sits on his chest; she knows he might not be real, none of this might be real, but she’d like to feel not alone while she’s unsure. “I wouldn’t blame you, Wanda, if you couldn’t.” 

“I told you that when I looked into your head I saw annihilation. What if you looked into mine and saw the same thing?” The room is becoming dark now – the afternoon is turning over into night. She will have to pretend to go to sleep soon.

“Is that something you want – destruction?”

She doesn’t answer because, honestly? She would burn the world down to have her brother back, she would do anything to put her shattered pieces somewhere they fit, instead of hiding them like she does now. And it isn’t that she wants it specifically – she doesn’t crave it like she felt Ultron did – she just can’t tell the difference between wanting to do something and not caring if it happened. It doesn’t matter; none of this is real, anyway. “Would you still want me if I did?”

She’s pushing harder now, she can see his features in the dim lighting twisting in the kind of way that means she’s stepped over a line, and he doesn’t really know what to do with her now that she’s toed over it. She doesn’t really know what she’s looking for. She guesses that if he says he still wants her, everything must be a dream, not real, a product of too much red in her fingers, because it’s too good to be true, and she must, then, try to put the world back together. Her hand tenses on his chest, and she wants to lean into him, feel her pulse against his skin. She presses her forehead to his and closes her eyes. She might even sleep here, her breaths warming the space between them.

His words are soft and warm. “After what happened, I don’t blame you. I can’t blame you.”

“That’s unfair,” she murmurs, childish, her accent thick with sleeplessness. Even with her eyes closed she knows the room is getting darker; the sun is hiding again. “What if I deserve to be blamed?”

He puffs out a breath – a sigh, she thinks, a humoured sigh; he lets her have her way. “Okay,” he says. She can feel his smile, small, against her. “Okay.”

This could still be a dream, she knows. She picks up a piece of her skin between her fingers and squeezes. It doesn’t matter, she thinks. Just because it hurts doesn’t make it real. 

“Did it hurt?” Vision asks.

She hums in reply. Yes. No. She is losing herself, dozing off, letting her mind go. It is night time now; if she opened her eyes and looked past the glass of the window she would maybe see a star or two. She doesn’t want to open her eyes, though. 

She wants to press her lips to his, just to see, just to know. Her fatigue makes her confident, and she pushes herself towards him. He is taken by surprise. She likes that.

“Wanda,” he says, and it’s either shock or relief or she doesn’t know. He might scold her in the morning, when it’s daytime and they have to talk about things like this. He’ll tell her she’s being silly. She says his name back, teasing him. He takes her waist and she smiles into his cheek as she kisses it. He won’t be like this in the morning.

“It’s okay,” she says, slowly. “None of this is real, anyway.”

**Author's Note:**

> im randomfatechidna on tumblr


End file.
